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Pan de Cioccolate

June 26, 2011 - 10:49pm

breadsong

Pan de Cioccolate

Hello,I first tasted Pan de Cioccolate, an amazing bread!, when it was served to students at SFBI's weekend Baguette workshop last October. I was so happy to see that bread again, when attending my recent class there :^)The formula for this bread is in Advanced Bread and Pastry, so today I gave it a go.My husband loves it too, and upon tasting it, requested that I bake it for his birthday and stick a candle in it! :^)

By way of explanation, my girlfriend had kindly given me a little chocolate knick-knack...I was looking at it and was inspired by the little "chocolates"...hence the scoring and flour patterns on these loaves:

Some close-ups:

I used some Guittard 62% semi-sweet chocolate for this, with no regrets! This formula mixes up into a gorgeous, supple dough:

And just a couple of more photos, one taken just before baking, and a crumb shot:

Thank you, Syd! This bread has an amazing flavor thanks to the cocoa (6%), honey (18%), vanilla (1%) and chocolate (20%).mmmm, good!!! (The Guittard chocolate is heavenly, and I used some good, dark Dutch cocoa). And honey and vanilla, well, don't get me started...but this combination is wonderful in a latte, and is a great addition to this bread!:^) from breadsong

Those look amazing breadsong! You've managed to reproduce the patterns shown on the chocolates, onto your loaves brilliantly. They all look great but I really like the look of the spiral pattern loaf. Very eye catching and elegant!

Years ago I when I was baking for a restaurant I made a similar chocolate bread from Carol Field's 'Italian Baker' for a Chocolate French Toast we were serving for a brunch special. I recall it taking an incredibly long time to rise (4+hours) before I could finally get it baked off. Field's formula is a slightly richer straight dough using a small amount of butter, an egg yolk and 3% yeast (not osmotolerant), which would account for the lengthy rise time. I'm wondering if this was the case with these lovely loaves of yours.

Hello Franko, Thank you so much for your compliments! (I liked the little spiral too :^) ).The osmotolerant yeast must be liking all of that honey, as I let these loaves proof for 2.5 hours at 80F (2.5 - 3 hours recommended at 80F). The addition of egg and butter, as with your Italian loaf, would bring this bread yet closer to 'cake' for my husband's next birthday!:^) from breadsong

Thanks, yy.The instructions are to bake on a rack...but I didn't read that part!I baked at 400F on the stone, and it worked out OK.I turned the loaves frequently while baking so that certain areas wouldn't get too dark.There certainly is potential for burning with this sweet dough.from breadsong

Hello diverpro94,Thanks so much! I will try to explain a little bit. I was winging it, trying some new patterns :^)

I found the hardest part about doing this...was that the straight blade I was working with, naturally, wanted to go straight.I was wanting to get some nice curved scores, so went slowly and gradually.This is what I used (a razor blade with one end masking-taped, for a safer place to hold on to). Holding the blade directly makes me feel like I've got better control over where the blade's going to go.

As I was going along I was trying to watch how the dough was opening up. If there were parts that looked narrow, I went back over that section to score a bit deeper, so that each score would be approximately the same depth.For the boules I think I was only scoring about 1/4" deep. I scored a bit deeper for the batard on the right.This dough was a dream to work with, and permitted me some time to flour and score...it stayed put and didn't start to spread out a whole lot once I'd started scoring; I appreciated having some time to work on decorating before putting the loaves in the oven!:^) from breadsong

Hello Andy, This batch of dough was 1500 grams, roughly divided into 4 x 235g boules, and 2 x 280g batards.(rich dough - made smaller loaves for gift-giving)I did keep them moving around while baking and kept an eye the loaf bottoms too, being on the stone (my error! - supposed to bake these on the rack).:^) from breadsong

Hello rolls,Thanks so much for your sweet comment!The chocolate bread is a really nice treat - so nice to know you have Ms. Field's recipe - which must make lovely bread!I just saw another beautiful chocolate bread, posted by lumos - you might like this one (and the flavor variations! described).:^) from breadsong

Ha ha, lumos...I like your description of scoring this dough :^)...considering how close this bread is to cake!

The final dough is 6% cocoa and 20% chocolate chips (per the formula - I substituted chopped chocolate for the chips).

I just loved your chocolate bread and its beautiful scoring and oven spring. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the book Advanced Bread and Pastry. The text for instruction is top-notch, as are the formulas - spot on! As much as I love the breads, I am really looking forward to getting more into the pastry side of this book also.

I hanven't seen the recipe, but if they're suggesting to use a special kind of yeast for that kind of bread with high content of sugar, I assume it's probably sugar tolerant (or osmotolerant, as a proper term) yeast. Kinds of yeast sold for retail are so different from country to country (I'm in UK and I know I can't get it in a homebaker-kind amount), so the best thing you can do is probably to ask the retailers or the yeast manufacturers in your country or search on internet using Danish search engine. Or try search for 'SAF yeast.' They are one of the most respected yeast manufacturers and make various kinds of yeast. It's not sold in UK, but you may be luckier where you are. Or being the country of sweet bread like Danish pastries, maybe your yeast is already made to be more osmotolerant than usual if a lot of homebaker make sweetened dough (as in Japan), though it may not state it on a packet.

At the moment I rarely make bread with high sugar content, so fortunately I can more or less survive without osmotolerant yeast. But if the time comes when I suddenly decide I need to live on daily dose of sweet dough, I may ask for your mercy. ;)

Happy baking, and good luck with your search! :)

ETA: Just in case you can't find osmotolerant yeast, Dan Lepard suggests just increase the amount of yeast you use. Or another idea is to look for a reliable recipe by a Danish baker aimed at Danish homebakers with similar proportion of sugar in the dough and see how much yeast is used. I'm sure that can give you a good idea about what sort and how much of yeast you should use where you are.

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